FRANK TALK: Chance meeting in used books

Friday

The guy was browsing the used book aisles. Finally, he decided on a true-crime book of sorts. It was kind of a guilty pleasure.

The guy was browsing the used book aisles.

They were considerable and held his attention for a good 45 minutes.

Finally, he decided on a true-crime book of sorts.

It was kind of a guilty pleasure.

There were certainly more edifying selections available – history, humor, classics, and many biographies of folks whose claim to fame didn’t include killing lots of other folks.

But the guy couldn’t help picking out the true-crime book, which was written by a two-man team of esteemed journalists.

The book chronicled the life of a Boston gangster, even reaching back to a history of his parents and grandparents.

And his claim to fame, the reason that his life merited such a detailed retrospective, was for the most part because he was not only adept at killing lots of folks, he was also adept at escaping prosecution for killing lots of folks.

The gangster also profited handsomely throughout his career of killing lots of folks.

So the guy was a little embarrassed to be purchasing a book about such a bad person.

But it was a good read.

He queued up in the line, which was kind of lengthy. The store sold all manner of used goods, not just books, and it was busy.

So the guy, naturally enough, started to read the book.

The authors decided to get right to one of the gangster’s murders in the opening chapter to capture the reader’s attention.

And it worked.

The guy read how the gangster decided his confederate’s girlfriend had to be killed.

He had a number of reasons for this and they made sense enough to him to arrange to strangle this woman with his bare hands.

The logic of taking this measure apparently seemed sound enough to the gangster’s confederate, who was a gangster himself, of course. So the confederate not only acquiesced in his girlfriend’s murder, he helped set it up.

It must be noted, though, the confederate didn’t physically help in strangling the young woman. He just lured her to the house where the murder took place and stood by.

The guy read how the book’s real-life protagonist throttled the woman to death while the soon-to-be-former boyfriend looked on.

There happened to be a pleasant looking young man ahead of the guy in line, maybe in his mid 20s. And with him were two young women of approximately the same age. They all seemed to be siblings, or maybe cousins. They had a comfortable familiarity with each other.

The young man noticed what the guy was reading. It turned out the young man was also buying a book.

And it happened to be a book about the gangster’s confederate, the very one who had helped in the murder of his girlfriend recounted in the first chapter of the book the guy was reading.

Small world.

“I see your reading that book,” the young guy said. “I’m getting this book,” he said, indicating his gangster biography.

The guy nodded.

“He’s my uncle,” the young guy said, referring to the confederate. He seemed proud of the fact. The confederate was a celebrity, after all. It’s not everybody who has multiple books written about them or their business associates.

“Oh, yeah,” the guy replied.

“Yeah, he’s my uncle,” the young guy repeated with a smile that was totally genuine.

“That’s interesting,” the guy said. He didn’t relate the contents of the chapter he had just read.